Who is Steve Bannon? ‘The Most Dangerous Political Operative In America’

Imagine: Miles upon miles of new concrete jails stretching across the scrub-brush horizons of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California, with millions of people incarcerated in orange jumpsuits and awaiting deportation.

Such is the fevered vision of a little-noticed segment of President Donald Trump’s sulfurous executive order on border security and immigration enforcement security. Section 5 of the January 25 order calls for the “immediate” construction of detention facilities and allocation of personnel and legal resources “to detain aliens at or near the land border with Mexico” and process them for deportation. But another, much overlooked, order signed the same day spells out, in ominous terms, who will go.

Related: Twitter users plead: ‚Stop President Bannon‘

Trump promised a week after the November elections that he would —a number that exists maiexpel or imprison some 2 million or 3 million undocumented immigrants with criminal convictionsnly in his imagination. (Only about 820,000 undocumented immigrants currently have a criminal record, according to the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank. Many of those have traffic infractions and other misdemeanors.) Den Rest des Beitrags lesen »

Li Yong

Li Yong is Director General of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO).

FEB 2, 2017 Project Syndicate

VIENNA – In today’s interdependent global economy, Africa remains a weak link. If the world is to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, thereby completing the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, it must help Africa accelerate its development by promoting rapid and responsible industrialization.

Africa is by no means destined to lag behind the rest of the world economy. On the contrary, it could easily become a global economic powerhouse – and within the next decade. But, to fulfill its economic potential, Africa must industrialize.

The importance of this has been stressed repeatedly at recent international forums, including last August’s Sixth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD VI), and the G20 summit in Hangzhou, China, the following month. For the first time, the G20 placed industrialization in Africa – and all of the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) – on its agenda. The African Union’s Agenda 2063 also supports this drive.

The recent UN General Assembly resolution declaring 2016-2025 the Third Industrial Development Decade for Africa is yet another push in this direction. The organization that I represent, the UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), has been tasked with operationalizing and leading the implementation of the concomitant program, including mobilizing the needed resources. Den Rest des Beitrags lesen »

J. Bradford DeLong

J. Bradford DeLong is Professor of Economics at the University of California at Berkeley and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He was Deputy Assistant US Treasury Secretary during the Clinton Administration, where he was heavily involved in budget and trade negotiations. His role in designing the bailout of Mexico during the 1994 peso crisis placed him at the forefront of Latin America’s transformation into a region of open economies, and cemented his stature as a leading voice in economic-policy debates.

FEB 2, 2017 Project Syndicate

BERKELEY – In a recent Vox essay outlining my thinking about US President Donald Trump’s emerging trade policy, I pointed out that a “bad” trade deal such as the North American Free Trade Agreement is responsible for only a vanishingly small fraction of lost US manufacturing jobs over the past 30 years. Just 0.1 percentage points of the 21.4 percentage-point decline in the employment share of manufacturing during this period is attributable to NAFTA, which was enacted in December 1993.

A half-century ago, the US economy supplied an abundance of manufacturing jobs to a workforce that was well equipped to fill them. Today, many of those opportunities have dried up. This is undoubtedly a significant problem; but anyone who claims that the collapse of US manufacturing employment resulted from “bad” trade deals is playing the fool. Den Rest des Beitrags lesen »

Nouriel Roubini

Nouriel Roubini, a professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business and Chairman of Roubini Macro Associates, was Senior Economist for International Affairs in the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers during the Clinton Administration. He has worked for the International Monetary Fund, the US Federal Reserve, and the World Bank.

FEB 2, 2017 Project Syndicate

NEW YORK – When Donald Trump was elected President of the United States, stock markets rallied impressively. Investors were initially giddy about Trump’s promises of fiscal stimulus, deregulation of energy, health care, and financial services, and steep cuts in corporate, personal, estate, and capital-gains taxes. But will the reality of Trumponomics sustain a continued rise in equity prices?

It is little wonder that corporations and investors have been happy. This traditional Republican embrace of trickle-down supply-side economics will mostly favor corporations and wealthy individuals, while doing almost nothing to create jobs or raise blue-collar workers’ incomes. According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, almost half of the benefits from Trump’s proposed tax cuts would go to the top 1% of income earners. Den Rest des Beitrags lesen »

Jeffrey D. Sachs

Jeffrey D. Sachs, Professor of Sustainable Development, Professor of Health Policy and Management, and Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, is also Director of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. His books include
The End of Poverty, Common Wealth, and, most recently, The Age of Sustainable Development.

FEB 2, 2017 Project Syndicate

NEW YORK – The key political divide in the United States is not between parties or states; it is between generations. The millennial generation (those aged 18-35) voted heavily against Donald Trump and will form the backbone of resistance to his policies. Older Americans are divided, but Trump’s base lies among those above the age of 45. On issue after issue, younger voters will reject Trump, viewing him as a politician of the past, not the future.

Of course, these are averages, not absolutes. Yet the numbers confirm the generational divide. According to exit polls, Trump received 53% of the votes of those 45 and older, 42% of those 30-44, and just 37% of voters 18-29. In a 2014 survey, 31% of millennials identified as liberals, compared with 21% of baby boomers (aged 50-68 in the survey) and only 18% of the silent generation (69 and above). Den Rest des Beitrags lesen »